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COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in a Representative Education Sector Population in Qatar

Even though vaccination programs have now started in earnest across the globe and in Qatar, vaccine hesitancy remains a barrier to effectively tackling the pandemic. Many factors influence willingness to take vaccines including safety, efficacy, and side effects. Given their proximity to research an...

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Autores principales: Al-Mulla, Reem, Abu-Madi, Marawan, Talafha, Qusai M., Tayyem, Reema F., Abdallah, Atiyeh M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8235273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34207012
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9060665
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author Al-Mulla, Reem
Abu-Madi, Marawan
Talafha, Qusai M.
Tayyem, Reema F.
Abdallah, Atiyeh M.
author_facet Al-Mulla, Reem
Abu-Madi, Marawan
Talafha, Qusai M.
Tayyem, Reema F.
Abdallah, Atiyeh M.
author_sort Al-Mulla, Reem
collection PubMed
description Even though vaccination programs have now started in earnest across the globe and in Qatar, vaccine hesitancy remains a barrier to effectively tackling the pandemic. Many factors influence willingness to take vaccines including safety, efficacy, and side effects. Given their proximity to research and education, university students and employees represent an interesting cohort in which to investigate vaccine hesitancy. The aim of this study was to assess the attitudes of Qatar University employees and students towards the COVID-19 vaccine. In total, 231 employees and 231 students participated in an online cross-sectional study in February 2021. Of the sample, 62.6% were willing to take a vaccine against COVID-19. Participants with or taking postgraduate degrees were more willing to take the vaccine compared to participants with or taking a diploma or bachelor’s degree (p < 0.001). Males had a higher rate of vaccine acceptance (p < 0.001). In the group that regarded flu vaccination as important, 13% were unwilling to take COVID-19 vaccine. There were no associations between willingness to vaccinate and vaccine/virus knowledge and social media use. Participants showed a high level of concern regarding vaccine side effects in themselves or their children. Two-thirds agreed or strongly agreed that they would take the vaccine if it was mandatory for international travel. Our participants were neutral to the origin of vaccine development. These findings, which represent data collected after the start of the national vaccination program, show that vaccine hesitancy persists in the Qatari population and that some groups, such as undergraduate students, could benefit from specific, targeted public health campaigns.
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spelling pubmed-82352732021-06-27 COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in a Representative Education Sector Population in Qatar Al-Mulla, Reem Abu-Madi, Marawan Talafha, Qusai M. Tayyem, Reema F. Abdallah, Atiyeh M. Vaccines (Basel) Article Even though vaccination programs have now started in earnest across the globe and in Qatar, vaccine hesitancy remains a barrier to effectively tackling the pandemic. Many factors influence willingness to take vaccines including safety, efficacy, and side effects. Given their proximity to research and education, university students and employees represent an interesting cohort in which to investigate vaccine hesitancy. The aim of this study was to assess the attitudes of Qatar University employees and students towards the COVID-19 vaccine. In total, 231 employees and 231 students participated in an online cross-sectional study in February 2021. Of the sample, 62.6% were willing to take a vaccine against COVID-19. Participants with or taking postgraduate degrees were more willing to take the vaccine compared to participants with or taking a diploma or bachelor’s degree (p < 0.001). Males had a higher rate of vaccine acceptance (p < 0.001). In the group that regarded flu vaccination as important, 13% were unwilling to take COVID-19 vaccine. There were no associations between willingness to vaccinate and vaccine/virus knowledge and social media use. Participants showed a high level of concern regarding vaccine side effects in themselves or their children. Two-thirds agreed or strongly agreed that they would take the vaccine if it was mandatory for international travel. Our participants were neutral to the origin of vaccine development. These findings, which represent data collected after the start of the national vaccination program, show that vaccine hesitancy persists in the Qatari population and that some groups, such as undergraduate students, could benefit from specific, targeted public health campaigns. MDPI 2021-06-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8235273/ /pubmed/34207012 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9060665 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Al-Mulla, Reem
Abu-Madi, Marawan
Talafha, Qusai M.
Tayyem, Reema F.
Abdallah, Atiyeh M.
COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in a Representative Education Sector Population in Qatar
title COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in a Representative Education Sector Population in Qatar
title_full COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in a Representative Education Sector Population in Qatar
title_fullStr COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in a Representative Education Sector Population in Qatar
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in a Representative Education Sector Population in Qatar
title_short COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in a Representative Education Sector Population in Qatar
title_sort covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in a representative education sector population in qatar
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8235273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34207012
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9060665
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